“I was just looking for a change, and this position opened up,” Troy said. “When I interviewed with Beal, they talked about their community emphasis, that meant a lot to me.”

Troy said typically, spring and fall sees more cleanup around the garden, whereas in the summer the real maintenance begins.

Troy and her two other gardeners spend time suppressing weeds, deadheading and taking diligent notes for plants which may not be properly growing due to a lack of resources.

“Summer’s a perfect time to notice any holes in the garden,” Troy said. “Sometimes things are late to come up in spring, but in summer you really know if it’s alive or not.”

Troy is the one to manage these priorities, which can change on a daily and hourly basis.

Water is a vital element gardeners must pay attention to in the summer, she said. 

“Our irrigation was not working, and when we weren’t getting rain that was what we considered an emergency so we had to find some creative ways to work around that,” Troy said.

However, when it does rain significantly, problems can arise.

“We are in a floodplain, right along the Red Cedar river,” Troy said. “That makes maintaining plants a challenge.” 

Because of this location, she said, the positioning of plants is important, as the diverse collections of plants all require unique care. The toughest collection for them to maintain is the Injurious collection, which includes plants like Poison Ivy, Rue and others that may cause toxic reactions.

“We have to wait for a cloudier, cooler day to really get in there because some of these plants secrete their toxic oils in the heat or direct sunlight,” she said.

Although Troy is still new to the garden, she's been involved in discussions regarding new additions.

“We’ve talked a lot about expanding some of the pond area, a favorite amongst visitors and staff,” she said.

Their team is currently working on expanding a section of the garden over the summer: Pollinator Hill, with native plants supporting native pollinators. 

Katie Fry, the garden’s collection manager, deals with the curation of these plants.

“In the summertime, it’s really about making sure that we are growing a successful collection,” Fry said.

Each season offers something different, Fry said.

“You get to watch as the spring flowers bloom and then there’s a wave of just green, lush growth followed by more peppering of blooms which attracts all these pollinators into our garden," she said.

Fry has worked at the Beal Garden for eleven years but only recently became Collections Manager.

Fry said the garden just received a permit to collect an endangered Snow Trillium plant. They plan on preserving and breeding the plant species.

She's also been working on a new collection that brings plants in the garden together to tell a new story.

“We want to show how plants have been essential for creating art,” she said. “Specifically, how plants have been used as dyes for making paint.”  

The collection won’t just be restricted to plants which create dye, however; it will include others tied to art as well.

“It allows for us to talk about different forms of art like fashion, visual arts too, but we want to go beyond that as well,” she said. “Think about architecture, literature. Those plants exist in our garden right now, we just want to bring it all together so we can have these conversations about how interwoven plants and people are.” 

This collection is still in the planning stages. Troy urges people to come visit the garden over the summer.

“You can look at pictures all day, but seeing a plant in person can change a perspective,” she said. "I’ve met people who saw a plant and it was almost like a gateway into a whole new world of plants. They didn’t know that it excited them until they visited a garden and saw it firsthand.”